"She assumed that I did not speak Swedish."
Translation:Hon antog att jag inte talade svenska.
13 Comments
In subordinate clauses, the adverb (inte) comes before the verb. It’s a tricky feature of Swedish. Look at these examples:
- Det regnar inte i dag. (It doesn’t rain today.)
-
Jag gick ut, eftersom det inte regnade. (I went out, since it didn’t rain.)
-
Han kommer alltid. (He always comes.)
- Jag tror att han alltid kommer. (I think that he always comes.)
The subordinate clause can also come first:
- Eftersom bussen ofta är försenad, kommer hon sent till jobbet. (Since the bus is often late, she is late for work.)
- När jag inte jobbar, lagar jag mat. (When I don’t work, I cook.)
Watch out for words like att, eftersom, när, då since they’re often followed by a subordinate clause and pay attention to the word order then.
But in this case, the verb isn't at the second position in the subordinate clause. Am I right?
830
In main clauses, the rule is that the verb goes second. In subclauses, the rule is that the subject goes before the verb. (plus, as Lundgren8 said, inte also goes before the verb).
Why does it say the correct answer is Hon antog att jag inte kunde svenska? Isn't kunde could rather than talk?
- 830
The suggested answer is Hon antog att jag inte talade svenska. But all accepted answers can be shown as 'another correct answer' (it tries to match your input to the closest accepted answer).
A closer translation of …att jag inte kunde svenska would be '…that I did not know Swedish'.
- 318
l hope there's a module further down the tree that gives lots of exercises for structures like this. It would be good to learn them well rather than just having one random sentence.
There are more such sentences, but I don't think they're bundled in a specific lesson. Might be a good idea for the future, though.
